


breathe me with your hands

by AlwaysLera



Series: one red thread [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/M, Feels, PTSD, Sex, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:05:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8803738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysLera/pseuds/AlwaysLera
Summary: Clint and Natasha navigate sex and trauma.





	

**Author's Note:**

> TW for Natasha's issues with sex, consent, PTSD.

 

Natasha scowled at Clint. “Stop looking at me like that.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, not moving. “I’m not looking at you any differently than I normally look at you.”

“That’s not true,” she said. He was sitting on their bed, cross-legged and shirtless, scars marring muscle, his arms draped casually over his knees. His feet were bare. He was the picture of relaxation and confidence while she paced in front of the bed, picking at her lip with one hand, pulling her braid with another hand, the hood of her sweatshirt--that used to be his--pulled up. She felt small there, but not inconsequential. After all, he was waiting for her.

“How am I looking at you?” He asked, his voice patient without condescending.

She frowned, stopping just long enough to find the words before pacing again. “Like this means something.”

“It  _ does _ mean something,” he said. “And you know it means something too or you wouldn’t be pacing and considering.”

“That’s not--,” she stumbled over the words and took a deep breath. “You don’t look at me like this. Not like you  _ want _ me.”

He nodded once, uncrossing his legs like he was going to get up, and then reconsidering and recrossing them. “Okay. I understand. But, Tash, I  _ always  _ want you. Just because you don’t always see or acknowledge it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Listen to me. If you aren’t ready, you aren’t ready, and that’s fine.”

“I want to be ready,” she snapped.

“I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you are.”

“I’ve had sex before,” she told him. 

He eyed her like she was a wild animal about to attack him. “Yeah.”

“You’ve  _ listened  _ to me have sex before.”

He didn’t look away. “Yes.”

She stopped. “And don’t tell me this is different because it matters.”

“It is, though. And you can’t make yourself be ready. You are, or you aren’t.”

Natasha drew a deep, rattling breath, the fog clearing from her mind and the room around him coming back into focus. Their little studio apartment in a little fourth story walk-up in Brooklyn. The brick walls and the art and Clint’s photography and the aloe plant she hadn’t quite killed yet. Their space. A space they made together. She’d accepted this so easily, so readily, so naturally. So why was this different. 

“I don’t know that that’s true,” she said softly, staring past him at a picture of Paris at night. “What if I’m eighty percent there?”

His eyes widened and for a moment, he was quiet. Then he said, “That’s not happening, Natasha. I know you, and you know I do. You’re asking me to know you and be okay with something other than full, enthusiastic consent?”

She shrank into the hoodie, wrapping her arms around herself. “No, you’re right.”

“Come to bed,” he said, his voice gentle. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

She shook her head. “We’ve been talking about it for  _ years,  _ Clint.”

“Which is why another day won’t hurt either of us. Natasha, sex has never been a dealbreaker. It never could be.” 

She heard the unfinished words, the way and shape of his mouth around them, and everything he wasn’t saying. The thing they didn’t say between them that would suck the oxygen out of the room. But she knew what he felt, and knew what she felt, and knew what he meant. They’d been sharing a bed for almost as long as they’d been partners and they kissed, but never in bed, never anything more than cuddling. It reminded her too much of work and she’d never fucked anyone outside of work. She didn’t know how to have sex with someone she cared about, someone who was real, someone she wasn’t trying to game. 

Natasha untangled her arms and pulled her hood down. She drummed her fingers against her lips. “What if--,” she paused, then swallowed. “What would...how would you start?”

There was a stillness in his body that terrified her. She didn’t even fully understand what she was asking, but the words were out, and she couldn’t take them back. Clint couldn’t remember his own birthday, but he’d never forgotten anything she’d ever said. 

He unfolded his legs, hands sliding to his knees. She watched his stomach tremble a little as he inhaled and exhaled slowly. They were doing this. “I’d kiss you.” He straightened, his eyes set on hers, pale and gray and steady. “Not the way I kiss you before we leave the apartment in the morning. I’d cradle your face in my hands, Natasha, and when I kissed you, I’d be telling you that you’re safe with me. That I--,” he almost said it, but dove around the word, “want you, as imperfect and beautiful and deadly as you are.”

Her fingers trembled at the hem of her sweatshirt. His sweatshirt. “Then what?”

He swallowed, his throat bobbing. “I’d pull your sweatshirt over your head.”

“I’m not wearing a bra,” she whispered.

His eyes darkened, and closed. “And tug your pajama pants down over your hips. I’d hold your hands so you could step out of them. You’d try to touch me now, because you’d be self conscious. You’d want control, but Natasha, you only need control. You want to give it up. You want to give it to me.”

“Yes,” she whispered, stepping closer to him.

“I’d touch you,” he murmured, eyes opening again. “Your skin’s smooth and soft and it heats everywhere I touch, streaks of blush across your skin.”

“Yes,” she said again, louder this time. She forced herself to take a deep breath. 

“I’d know you with my mouth first,” he said, tearing his eyes from her body to meet her gaze. “And my hands. You’d shiver, and I’d apologize for my rough hands.”

She wanted to reach for his hand, curl her fingers around his bow fingers. “I never thought they were rough.” She wanted to say  _ they make me feel real.  _ She wanted to say  _ they’re mine. Your hands are my hands. Please touch me. _

She stepped closer. “I would want to touch you now.”

Clint’s smile was small. “Not yet. You’d be wet.”

She shivered.

Clint’s eyes traced her body, his hands curling tight around his knees. “I’d run one finger down your breastbone, over your stomach, down between your legs. Just one because you want more, but just one because I’ll be gentle with you. One finger sliding inside of you. My thumb on your clit.”

A whimper slipped out of her lips. She swayed on the spot. “Please.”

“How many times can I make you come, Natasha?”

She swallowed. “I never have with--with someone else.”

He swore softly. “You’ve always torn me apart.”

“I don’t know how many times,” she answered.

“We’ll find out,” he promised. “You’ll come on my hand with my fingers inside of you and my mouth on your breast. And then you’ll come around my cock, and then when I put my mouth on you. You’ve always been limitless and wild. I want to taste you when you come apart.”

He had always been the red thread that stitched together her edges. He was the only one who could pull her apart. He was doing it now with his words, which, when she thought about it, made sense. It’d been his words all those years ago that had talked her off a rooftop in Budapest, brought her into SHIELD, won her trust, won her faith and her companionship. He’d never won her over with touch, just the simple act that what he said to her was true. What he promised to do, he did. Tonight would be no exception.

“When do I get to touch you?” she asked, hesitant and curious.

He studied her, concentration making his brow furrow and his mouth flatten. “You’re curious.”

She wanted to run her hands over the planes of his muscles and over his scars, wanted to feel his strength and the way he wanted her, over his cock and wrap her hand around it. She wanted to touch him like she hadn’t before, like she wasn’t searching for injury or trying to cut a parachute off of him. She wanted to touch him to know him. 

“Yes.” She stepped closer, her knees bumping against his knees. 

He tilted his head up to see her. “You first.”

She hadn’t expected that. She’d expected him to make her wait. She lifted her hand, running her thumb across his cheekbone. He leaned into her hand, kissing the heel of her palm. She smiled. “I don’t think you’re allowed to do that.”

“I’m not?” he asked into the soft skin of her wrist. The heat in her stomach pooled between her legs and she wanted to sink down onto him, straddle his lap and ease the ache. So she did, slowly and cautiously. He wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her steady and she exhaled slowly. She didn’t move for a moment and then skated her hands across his collarbones, down his shoulders and his arms, then back to his lower back. She pressed herself against him, feeling the length of him bump her stomach, hard and demanding, her clothed body against his bare chest.

He inhaled, and so did she. 

She reached down between them, wrapping her hand around his cock through his pajama pants, and he gently removed her hand. “Natasha, look at me.”

She stared at a freckle on his cheek. He clucked his tongue disapprovingly and her eyes shot to his. He met her gaze. “Do we need to go back to the game? Did we move too fast?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You’ll be honest with me?”

She met his gaze. “Yes.”

He moved her hand back onto his thigh. “Then this is about you tonight.”

“It can be about you too,” she protested.

He cut her off with a raised eyebrow. “When has it ever been about you in the bed?”

Never. But she didn’t need to tell him that. He knew. He nodded. “Okay?”

She ducked her head, pressing her face into his neck.  _ Okay, _ she wanted to say, but couldn’t. She rose a little bit and sank down, pressing herself hard against him and making them both gasp. He gripped both of her arms and pushed her back until she was standing in front of him again. She watched his chest rise and fall rapidly, and then steady out as he gained control again.

“I want you,” she said clearly. “Like that. Like you said you would.”

He stood up, tracking the curves of her with a hand on her side. “Then let’s start from the top.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was in my head today and I had to spit it out. I'll probably write a companion piece from Clint's POV but not tonight. Fanfic's like Pringles. I wrote a little bit for the first time in ages and now I can't stop. Sorry not sorry.


End file.
